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The drinking fountain button

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Re: The drinking fountain button

#171

Post by softsound »

HeatrayEnjoyer wrote: post #125
bombcar wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From my travels the USA is way more concerned with water-saving devices, even in areas where there really is no water conservatory problems. Toilets in Europe will still seem to flush using the full power of Niagara Falls, which are quite rare in the US now.

Europe doesn't have the water scarcity issues of the US. When my brother in law from Germany visited a few summers ago he was shocked by the amount of drought news and water conservation instructions broadcast daily on TV.

That's ironic because I remember a few summers ago hearing about droughts in Europe. Looks like they may have had issues too but maybe not as public.

https://joint-research-centre.ec.europa.eu/jrc-news-and-upda...

Re: The drinking fountain button

#172

Post by softsound »

solardev wrote: post #123
walthamstow wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think it's a good thing that I must have a bottle with me in order to drink from a public water fountain? To be clear, I think fountains should do both direct drink and bottle fill-up.

Is it common where you live to only have the bottle fill up? Every time I've seen them in Oregon, California, Washington, and Illinois, there's either a drinking fountain right under it or within a few steps' distance away.

Here in Texas we also have the drinking fountain and water bottle combo and I've seen them in most places.

Re: The drinking fountain button

#173

Post by TeMPOraL »

lambdaxyzw wrote: post #23
piskov wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are not fountains but glorified watercoolers with sparkling water and, sometimes, lemonade. Most of the time they were not free although very cheap: 1 copeck. These survived up to the 1995, several years after the fall. And yes, most glasses have never been stolen. Shared glasses were quite safe because every machine had special button to clean the glass with pressurized technical water (several calibrated jets…

>It’s only after the fall of the Soviet Union that shit with plastic poured into. As well with the fall of recycling, morals, etc. Soviet Union was green not because of morals, but because it was poor and couldn't afford single use packages. I remember when Nutella entered my country, the empty Nutella jars were washed, kept and used as glasses for drinking - because buying new glasses was hard or expensive. >And yes…

Poland here, we still do the thing with Nutella glasses. Not because we can't afford glassware, but rather because why on Earth would you throw away a perfectly good glass?

What GP described might have been first and foremost the signs of a poor society, but then this only gives credence to the whole "decadent rich" line. Single-use plastics are a sign of a lazy and wasteful society.

Re: The drinking fountain button

#174

Post by TeMPOraL »

bombcar wrote: post #84
vwelling wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well actually... We're doing a pretty good job of making it a lot less common: https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/problem-our-dwin... There's even such a thing as Sand Theft: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sand_theft

Nice beach sand and glass-making sand are quite different; glass-making sand doesn't have to be nice and smooth.

Concrete-making sand on the other hand...

Re: The drinking fountain button

#175

Post by idiomaddict »

walthamstow wrote: post #111
plutoh28 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider getting a water bottle?

Why do you think it's a good thing that I must have a bottle with me in order to drink from a public water fountain? To be clear, I think fountains should do both direct drink and bottle fill-up.

Because you’re encountering bottle fill stations that don’t have an attached water fountain. Your other options (at first glance) are to complain to your public works department or to keep being annoyed by the problem, neither of which is likely to actually fix the problem.

Re: The drinking fountain button

#176

Post by [deleted] »

weinzierl wrote: post #32

"Who among us hasn’t walked up to a drinking fountain, expecting a bubbling stream of life-giving water, only to experience the crushing disappointment of a measly trickle after smashing in that button?" That'd be me. I traveled quite a bit all over the world and these seem to be a pretty American thing. It's also a bit strange because for the countries that have them it is generally not recommended to drink tap wate…

[deleted]

Re: The drinking fountain button

#177

Post by mynameisnoone »

whartung wrote: post #107

I always preferred the spring loaded knobs (or levers) that you twist compared to the buttons you press down. More leverage, easier to use and modulate if necessary.

I remember those. 4-sided either rounded bulbs or paddles that blended into the central hub. The disadvantage is that they require fine motor control and so aren't accessible to all people. The problem though is that most of the pushbutton types tend to require too great of force to be usable by anyone. I prefer the crashbar button type that requires some force to engage but much less force to remain engaged.

Re: The drinking fountain button

#178

Post by throwaway8357 »

CorrectHorseBat wrote: post #146
matwood wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EU toilets are often of the 'poop shelf' design. Which end up requiring cleaning and multiple flushes after every bowel movement.

It depends very much on the country, for example The Netherlands is a poop shelf design country, but Belgium isn't. No idea what's the reason behind it.

In my Scandinavian country, we don't have a "poop shelf" either. But we don't use the American design with a huge amount of water in the bowl.

It's has a small amount of water at the bottom that receives our "output". There are also no problems urinating as it is easy to either hit the water or the porcelain wall at the bottom, that are much more vertical. Most of the accidental splashes that occur are either because the man is drunk and can't hit the toilet, or that the foreskin is pulled a bit back and doesn't contain the stream as well as it should.

Re: The drinking fountain button

#179

Post by thesmok »

matwood wrote: post #128
Johnny555 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like you need a better designed toilet. Good low flow toilets do exist. We replaced the old 3.5 gallons per flush toilet in our house with a new Kohler 1.28gpf unit and it flushes and clears the bowl just fine - no worse than the previous toilet with about 1/3rd the water use.

EU toilets are often of the 'poop shelf' design. Which end up requiring cleaning and multiple flushes after every bowel movement.

Old EU toilets can be poop shelf. When I've shopped for new one in 2015, there was not a single one of that design.

Re: The drinking fountain button

#180

Post by lores »

bombcar wrote: post #78
weinzierl wrote: post #32

"Who among us hasn’t walked up to a drinking fountain, expecting a bubbling stream of life-giving water, only to experience the crushing disappointment of a measly trickle after smashing in that button?" That'd be me. I traveled quite a bit all over the world and these seem to be a pretty American thing. It's also a bit strange because for the countries that have them it is generally not recommended to drink tap wate…

From my travels the USA is way more concerned with water-saving devices, even in areas where there really is no water conservatory problems. Toilets in Europe will still seem to flush using the full power of Niagara Falls, which are quite rare in the US now.

Most toilets in Western Europe, at least new ones, have two buttons for low and high flow. Low flow is not an unalloyed good, though, it leads to sewer lines getting clogged, which can be a pretty expensive thing to fix depending on where the sewer access is.
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